Profile

The red panda (which is much smaller than the giant panda)
resembles a raccoon in size and appearance. The red panda weighs 3 - 6 kg (7 -
13 lb).
It lives in mountain forests with a bamboounderstory,
at altitudes generally between 1500 and 4800 m (5000 - 15,700'). Red pandas almost exclusively eat bamboo. They are good tree climbers and spend most of
their time in trees when not foraging. A female red panda picks a location such
as a tree hollow or rock
crevice for a maternal den, where she will bear 1 - 5 young. Red pandas are solitary,
except for the mating period and the time when a mother and its young are together.

The red panda is found in a mountainous band from Nepal
through northeastern India and Bhutan and into China,
Laos and northern Myanmar.
It is rare and continues to decline. It has already become extinct in 4 of the 7 Chinese
provinces in which it was previously found. The major threats to red pandas are loss and
fragmentation of habitat due to deforestation (and the resulting loss of bamboo) for
timber, fuel and agricultural land; poaching for the pet and fur trades; and competition
from domestic livestock.

Tidbits

*** The first known written record of the red panda occurs in a 13th-century Chou
dynasty scroll. It was introduced to Europeans by Thomas Hardwicke in 1821 (48 years
before the giant panda was reported in the West). He called it
"Wah" after the sound of its loud call. He also mentioned a local name,
"poonya," which was eventually anglicized to "panda." (Roberts 1992a)

*** "There are few of the Mammalia which are decorated with such refulgently
beautiful fur as that which decks the body of the Panda, also called the Chitwa or Wah in
its native Nepal. .. It .. does not seem to
occur in sufficient numbers to render its beautiful fur an object of commercial
value." (Wood 1860)

*** "Quite a lot of those beautiful animals, the red panda, come from Nepal each year to Calcutta for export to foreign
zoos... they are a favorite pet of India's Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru." (Gee 1964)

History of Distribution:

The red panda is found in the Himalayas, as well as in other high mountains of northern
Myanmar and western Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces, China. Its confirmed westernmost range seems to be the
Namlung Valley in Mugu District and the Lake Rara region of northwestern Nepal. The southern limit is the Liakiang Range of
western Yunnan, China and the northern and eastern
limit is the upper Min Valley of western Sichuan, China.
(Roberts 1992)

There are two subspecies of the red panda. The range of Ailurus fulgens fulgens
extends from Nepal through northeastern India (West Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh), Bhutan and into China
(Bahuguna et al. 1998). A.f. styani is only found in China, in the areas of the Hengduan Mountains in
Sichuan and the East Nujiang River of Yunnan Province (Wei et al. 1998), and in northern Myanmar(Roberts
1998).

The red panda was previously distributed in China
over a larger area than today, including western Sichuan and Yunnan, southern Shanxi and
Gansu, northern Guizhou, and the southwest of Tibet and Qinghai Provinces. However, it has
become extinct in Shanxi, Gansu, Qinghai and Guizhou Provinces and its range is now
confined to Sichuan, Yunnan, and Tibet. The probable area of
red panda habitat in China is approximately 37,000
sq km (14,000 sq mi). (Wei et al. 1998)
The extent of occurrence of the red panda in India
is about 170,000 sq km (65,000 sq mi), although its area of occupancy within this may only be about 25,000 sq
km (9600 sq mi). (Choudhury 2001)

There is increasing evidence that the red panda is rare and patchily distributed and is
continuing to decline.

Threats and Reasons for Decline:

The major threats confronting red pandas are loss and fragmentation of habitat
due to deforestation (and the resulting loss of bamboounderstory) for timber, fuel (including for
tourism) and agricultural land; poaching for the pet and fur trades; and competition from
domestic livestock (resulting in habitat degradation).

The relative importance of these different factors varies between different regions in
the red panda's range and is not well understood (Glatston 1994).

The fur of red pandas is used to make hats and clothing by local people in China. The fur hat with its long, luxurious tail at the
back looks beautiful and warm. In Yunnan Province, this type of hat is still desired by
newlyweds, because it was regarded as a talisman for a happy marriage in the past. (Wei et al. 1998)

Maximum Age:

Diet:

The red pandas almost exclusively eats bamboo (mostly
leaves, supplemented in the spring with bamboo shoots).
It sometimes supplements its diet during the summer with fruit.
It has
also been reported occasionally to eat a wide variety of other items including berries,
blossoms, fungi, seeds, acorns, eggs, young birds, small rodents, and insects.

Energy and Metabolism:

The red pandas digestive efficiency is similar to the giant
pandas at 24% dry matter, necessitating daily food consumption of up to 30% of
body weight for maintenance (Reid et al. 1991).

Red pandas spend as much as 13 hours a day searching for and
eating bamboo. Only about 25 % of the already
limited energy in bamboo is extracted. Red pandas
have low basal rates of metabolism, comparable to that of tree sloths. This strategy
appears to be a means of reducing total energy expenditure in an arboreal, sedentary species that feeds on a food with
low energy density (i.e. bamboo). (Roberts 1992)

Behavior:

The red panda is a good tree climber and spends most of its time in trees
(87% of sightings of red pandas in one study (Pradhan
1999)) when it is
not foraging. It uses trees not only for feeding but also to escape ground-based
predators, and to sunbathe high in the canopy
during winter (Burnie
& Wilson 2001). It is variously reported as being least active in the night, and most active
during the day with slightly decreased activity around midday (Reid et al. 1991), or as foraging on the
ground primarily at night and sleeping in trees during the day (Roberts 1998).

A female red panda uses a tree hollow, branch fork, tree root, bamboo
thicket or rock crevice for a
maternal den, which she fashions and lines with branches, leaves, moss and
other plant material.

Social Organization:

Red pandas are solitary, except for the mating period and the time when a mother and its young are together.